Mighty Gadget Blog: The latest technology news & reviews in the UK

We’ve been a bit slow to up this news to you but the iMac has recently had a spec overhaul (as they do) and they look pretty tasty. However I’ll always be a PC fan but I can see the draw for some people to go for the iMac providing it’s for a genuine reason other than “it’s Apple” or “it’s pretty”

Anyway what’s it got. Well firstly it’s processor power. Now packing all your favourite and latest Core i3, i5 and i7 processors with Core i3 offerings of 3.2GHz, i5 of 3.6GHz and the massive 27” iMac can house a super Quad-Core 2.93GHz Core i7. So speed is certainly upped. Memory wise they start with a decent enough 4GB of RAM which can be upgraded to 16GB. 500GB of HDD will be standard but one can now opt for the 256GB SSD or again if you’re looking at the behemoth 27”, it can hold up to 2TB of HDD. The SD card slot now supports SDXC cards which at the moment reach as far as 64GB so certainly there’s plenty of space to be found for all your media and docs. The other spec increase comes in the form of a ATI Radeon HD 5750 graphics card perfectly capable of delivering high quality HD graphics and media content on the now standard LED backlit screen.

Packing all the usual goodies of Bluetooth, Firewire 800 and N-standard WiFi the new iMacs are ready to go now and will start at £999

Apple is always busy this time of year, recently we had the iMac changes, then iPhone 4 and iPhone OS 4.0. Now the Mac Mini has got a makeover too and has appeared on the Apple website and is available to buy now. Originally these were the space saving, money saving alternative to an iMac or Macbook, for internet surfing and other basic computing tasks but now the price has been bumped up slightly and with the extra power inside the capabilities of it have also improved.

The first main change is the box itself. A mere 1.4” thin It’s now made from the single Aluminium sheet the Macbook Pro sports but also alongside it’s DisplayPort it now has HDMI out to connect it to any HDTV. The second big change is obviously what’s in the machine.

Lower spec Mac mini - £649

• 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo processor
• 2GB of memory
• 320GB HDD
• NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics
• Mac OS X Snow Leopard
• 8x double-layer SuperDrive

There’s also another more expensive model with Snow Leopard Server

• 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
• 4GB memory
• Dual 500GB 7200-rpm hard drives¹
• NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics
• Mac OS X Server Snow Leopard

The Sony Vaio J11M1E/B(try and remember that) is a brand new 21.5” Full 1080p HD multitouch screen all in one PC, just in time for the revised iMac and for all of us who opt for the traditional PC over the Mac. If you’re looking for a PC with looks and certainly saves on bulk space this could be for you.

Inside the all in one body the Vaio J specs speak for themselves. Not quite a top of the range PC but sufficient for everyday use.

• Intel Core i3 Processor
• 4GB RAM
• 500GB HDD
• Nvidia GeForce 310M Graphics
• Windows 7 Home Premium
• WiFi, Bluetooth and DVD writer

The main draw to this system though is the screen. a Full 1920x1080 affair so there’s plenty of room for plenty of windows. Sony has also developed a Media Gallery on the PC to make full use of the multitouch functions, allowing the user to browse its content with finger gestures, flicks and rotating motions. YouPaint is also an interesting software addition allowing you to paint and draw with your hands all over the screen.

Out next month there’s no price as yet, but we imagine you’ll need to invest in some screen cloths for those fingerprint marks

Samsung has now joined the all-in-one computing club now after several computing giants are producing, with success, the space saving alternative to a desktop that the iMac has brought back into fashion.

When Windows 7 was released a large number of these PCs appeared on the market due to its compatibility to touchscreen technology. Although there isn’t a huge amount of information on the PC, what we do know is there will be two models, a 23” U250 and a 20” U200. The U250 will pack a Full HD capable screen and looks wise looks a lot like Dell’s foray into the all-in-one machine. The smaller U200’s screen will only output 1600x900 so although capable of 720p will not be able to reach the Full 1080p. However as we don’t know whats driving the machines processor or GPU wise, we don’t know for sure if HD is even possible.

Due out in May we have no price details but if you’re interested PC world are apparently going to stock them so they’ll probably appear on their site soon with full specs details.

MSI seem to be going full steam ahead bringing out top spec PC’s and laptops recently and they don’t seem like stopping. Next month is the CeBit expo in Germany and it is expected that MSI will be showing off a few numbers but one in particular catching the eye is its All-in-One system.

Although specs are a bit vague at the moment MSI  have said "The combination of a 24” 120Hz 1080p LED panel and 3D shutter glasses brings the kind of 3D video experience into your home that you would normally only expect from a modern 3D movie theater." We are expecting the latest Intel Core i3/5/7 processors, ATi GPUs and the screen will display at 120Hz adopting the Active Shutter 3D system. This means when its firing 3D, each eye will see the image at 60Hz each, allowing a much clearer smoother 3D image. More info expected at CeBit.

We saw t’other day the mid/top-range gaming laptop MSI offered the GE600. At CeBit we’re expecting to see the GT660. Again we’ll be looking at Intel Quad-Core processing, GeForce GTX285 GPU and the possiblity of up to 12GB RAM and brand new USB 3.0 ports aplenty.

MSI have announced that its laptop ranges will be modernised with the latest Intel Core i5 and i7 chips and Windows 7 improving them by a minimum of 30%.

The Classic ranges will come in 3 models of CR420, CR620 and CR720 and will have LED screens starting from 14” to a massive 17.3”. These will be the general all round laptop you need for everyday work and web use and will pack the i5 chips within. No details on release for these or prices yet.

The Gaming range will come in 2 models. The GX640 and GX740 will contain the more powerful i7 chipsets and will also come bundled with ATi Mobility Radeon HD graphics chips supporting DirectX 11 gaming and will really make good use of the HD screens.  Release is looking at March 2010 and prices will start at £999

The gaming lappies will also benefit from what is called “Turbo Boost Technology” which will efficiently distribute system power and resources with Intel Hyper-Threading Technology. They’re also packing Smart Cache and Graphics Media Accelerator HD to improve multimedia operation. The top end GX740 will also have 5 speakers for surround sound gaming but also a 7.1 optical out.

Recently Alienware were telling us that they were planning some new rigs for us to drool over but were keeping tight lipped on the details. However those lovely father figures at Dell let slip some details on the first of those that we’ll look at that. The Alienware M15x Laptop is the epitomy of a max power gaming laptop. As with all Alienware kit (who doesn’t love building ridiculously good PC’s that we could only buy with monopoly money) its a bit pricey. The barebones laptop starts at £1,199 but this can skyrocket with added features. Read on for more

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The Acer Revo is touted to hit the nettop market with a storm next month so it is no surprise that Asus are going to release a competitor to the Revo shortly afterwards in June.

Dubbed as the EeeBOX B208, the nettop is powered by Intel’s Atom 330 processor with ATI Radeon HD 4350 256MB video card, a 1GB RAM, a 160GB hard drive, and a 10GB Eee Storage. Other specs are include 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, built-in card reader, 4 USB ports, HDMI out, DVI-D port, Bluetooth, and a built-in battery with UPS function.